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Title: High-Performance Secure Database Access Technologies for HEP Grids

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN Laboratory will become the largest scientific instrument in the world when it starts operations in 2007. Large Scale Analysis Computer Systems (computational grids) are required to extract rare signals of new physics from petabytes of LHC detector data. In addition to file-based event data, LHC data processing applications require access to large amounts of data in relational databases: detector conditions, calibrations, etc. U.S. high energy physicists demand efficient performance of grid computing applications in LHC physics research where world-wide remote participation is vital to their success. To empower physicists with data-intensive analysis capabilities a whole hyperinfrastructure of distributed databases cross-cuts a multi-tier hierarchy of computational grids. The crosscutting allows separation of concerns across both the global environment of a federation of computational grids and the local environment of a physicist’s computer used for analysis. Very few efforts are on-going in the area of database and grid integration research. Most of these are outside of the U.S. and rely on traditional approaches to secure database access via an extraneous security layer separate from the database system core, preventing efficient data transfers. Our findings are shared by the Database Access and Integration Services Workingmore » Group of the Global Grid Forum, who states that "Research and development activities relating to the Grid have generally focused on applications where data is stored in files. However, in many scientific and commercial domains, database management systems have a central role in data storage, access, organization, authorization, etc, for numerous applications.” There is a clear opportunity for a technological breakthrough, requiring innovative steps to provide high-performance secure database access technologies for grid computing. We believe that an innovative database architecture where the secure authorization is pushed into the database engine will eliminate inefficient data transfer bottlenecks. Furthermore, traditionally separated database and security layers provide an extra vulnerability, leaving a weak clear-text password authorization as the only protection on the database core systems. Due to the legacy limitations of the systems’ security models, the allowed passwords often can not even comply with the DOE password guideline requirements. We see an opportunity for the tight integration of the secure authorization layer with the database server engine resulting in both improved performance and improved security. Phase I has focused on the development of a proof-of-concept prototype using Argonne National Laboratory’s (ANL) Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) project as a test scenario. By developing a grid-security enabled version of the ATLAS project’s current relation database solution, MySQL, PIOCON Technologies aims to offer a more efficient solution to secure database access.« less

Authors:
;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
PIOCON Technologies, Inc.
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
937423
Report Number(s):
DOE/ER/84369
TRN: US0903200
DOE Contract Number:  
FG02-05ER84369
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY; ACCELERATORS; ANL; ARCHITECTURE; CERN; COMPUTERS; DATA PROCESSING; ENGINES; HADRONS; MANAGEMENT; PERFORMANCE; PHYSICS; RECOMMENDATIONS; SECURITY; STORAGE; VULNERABILITY; Database, Grid, Security, High-Performance, Scalable, Access, Virtual Machine, Edge Services, Aspect Oriented

Citation Formats

Vranicar, Matthew, and Weicher, John. High-Performance Secure Database Access Technologies for HEP Grids. United States: N. p., 2006. Web. doi:10.2172/937423.
Vranicar, Matthew, & Weicher, John. High-Performance Secure Database Access Technologies for HEP Grids. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/937423
Vranicar, Matthew, and Weicher, John. 2006. "High-Performance Secure Database Access Technologies for HEP Grids". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/937423. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/937423.
@article{osti_937423,
title = {High-Performance Secure Database Access Technologies for HEP Grids},
author = {Vranicar, Matthew and Weicher, John},
abstractNote = {The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN Laboratory will become the largest scientific instrument in the world when it starts operations in 2007. Large Scale Analysis Computer Systems (computational grids) are required to extract rare signals of new physics from petabytes of LHC detector data. In addition to file-based event data, LHC data processing applications require access to large amounts of data in relational databases: detector conditions, calibrations, etc. U.S. high energy physicists demand efficient performance of grid computing applications in LHC physics research where world-wide remote participation is vital to their success. To empower physicists with data-intensive analysis capabilities a whole hyperinfrastructure of distributed databases cross-cuts a multi-tier hierarchy of computational grids. The crosscutting allows separation of concerns across both the global environment of a federation of computational grids and the local environment of a physicist’s computer used for analysis. Very few efforts are on-going in the area of database and grid integration research. Most of these are outside of the U.S. and rely on traditional approaches to secure database access via an extraneous security layer separate from the database system core, preventing efficient data transfers. Our findings are shared by the Database Access and Integration Services Working Group of the Global Grid Forum, who states that "Research and development activities relating to the Grid have generally focused on applications where data is stored in files. However, in many scientific and commercial domains, database management systems have a central role in data storage, access, organization, authorization, etc, for numerous applications.” There is a clear opportunity for a technological breakthrough, requiring innovative steps to provide high-performance secure database access technologies for grid computing. We believe that an innovative database architecture where the secure authorization is pushed into the database engine will eliminate inefficient data transfer bottlenecks. Furthermore, traditionally separated database and security layers provide an extra vulnerability, leaving a weak clear-text password authorization as the only protection on the database core systems. Due to the legacy limitations of the systems’ security models, the allowed passwords often can not even comply with the DOE password guideline requirements. We see an opportunity for the tight integration of the secure authorization layer with the database server engine resulting in both improved performance and improved security. Phase I has focused on the development of a proof-of-concept prototype using Argonne National Laboratory’s (ANL) Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) project as a test scenario. By developing a grid-security enabled version of the ATLAS project’s current relation database solution, MySQL, PIOCON Technologies aims to offer a more efficient solution to secure database access.},
doi = {10.2172/937423},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/937423}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2006},
month = {Mon Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2006}
}